August Box Peek Update

It's the last day of the month, and according to my calendar that means it's time to talk Box Peek.
Progress Update: Episode 5 is coming along smoothly, though at the same time I'm still behind where I wanted it to be. Easy Livin' and Spider-Man together may have cost around one week of Box Peek production, but at this point I'm learning to just be fine with that. (Also no promises but I'll try to get a supplementary Spider-Man video up on the Supplementary Video Embargo (which is separate day from the review embargo) and that's the last I'll say about Spider-Man until I'm allowed to talk about Spider-Man) I gave myself a late October debut target because I thought that would be achievable and the good news is that I'm still well on track to get there. I might maybe possibly push to November, but that's more of a matter of whether I'll be emotionally prepared to premiere or not. It's kinda scary. Look forward to a solidified Box Peek Season One premiere date in September's post. Originally I had planned to post the first and second episodes on the same day because I felt the premiere would feel less exciting, waiting a whole extra week after getting a video you've mostly already seen. However, now that Season One is only five episodes long it seems too rushed to burn two in one day, in addition to being something YouTube's cold and uncaring algorithm hates. Amanda had a great idea though: We're going to re-premiere Episode One two or three days ahead of Episode Two, creating a kind of special launch week. Episodes 2, 3, 4, and 5 will all premiere on the same day of the week at the same time, and we have yet to figure that out too. Lastly I am planning to delist the preview version of Episode One, Lucas style, but if that's a big no-no let me know. I think it would just be cleaner and less confusing to have one version of Episode One available.
Production Stuff: This month I want to talk more cutting and adding lines. I touched briefly on pickups--audio reshoots basically--in the June update, in which I said "Yeah just one for this episode, I nailed it" and then went on to record like ten new lines for Episode 4. It's been an unexpected and unique aspect of this project for me.
The reason for needing pickups in Box Peek basically fall into these categories:
- That sounds bad - Audio continues to be my least favorite part of Box Peek production. The sound of a microphone crackling or peaking or puffing fills me with such inner rage that I have to step away from the computer for a sec. Re-recording a line is the last thing I want to make someone do, but sometimes there's no other option.
- Whoops we forgot to record this - Sometimes a gasp or laughter will be written into the action of the script and we glance over it since we're just looking specifically for lines. It's embarrassing to write an email to Amanda saying "Hey can I just get a gasp?" but ultimately even little gasps are important.
- Wait that doesn't make sense - This is my most frequent issue. Example: Box Peek matches were originally written that both competitors would already be closed in their boxes when the countdown began. In making the first episode I quickly realized it's a much more interesting visual to see both opponents stare each other down as the Peekref counts off and then duck into their boxes on the word Go. This hadn't changed how any of the matches played out right until Episode 5, where things got a little weird. Fortunately a minor rewrite of one line patched up that particular incongruity, but this kind of thing happens all the time. Also, there will be times when I have to change a prop or scene as I'm actually drawing them out because I remember I'm dealing with paper puppets who have no lower halves, and I'll have to get new lines for those situations too.
- I have a funnier idea - These are my favorites. A weird part about recording and editing and puppeteering every line of this show is that I also have to consider each and every line many times. Some things will make me laugh from writing to recording to drawing to shooting to editing; those feel really good. Through this same process, the boring and bad jokes get exposed. It's why they tell writers to just put anything down when you don't have a better idea--it's actually much easier to come up with better punch lines and buttons now that I'm months detached from the original drafts. It should also be said that a lot of funnier ideas came naturally through the performers recording lines, whether they're just improvising good stuff or I'm feeding them new lines to try out. I should make the audio recording process its own post.

To me, cutting lines is just as important as adding lines. I believe that every scene should be as short as it possibly could be, so I've been chopping. Chopping in rewrites, recording, and mostly during editing, when you finally have a real feeling for a scene's pace. So far monologues have been the easiest place to find extra fat. It's funny, I think I truly learned to love this part of editing while producing segments for Live with YouTube Gaming, where I was given a hard time limit to fit all my stupid jokes and critique into. In my Final Bosman days I'd say "No no this ep should really be 20 minutes or it won't make sense" but at this point I take great satisfaction in chiseling minutes off of a video. So far I've cut out a lot of lines, but not a single scene. For all the production miscalculations I made during Box Peek, I was at least very thoughtful about minimizing scenes and locations to those that are absolutely essential. If you're interested in all the stuff that didn't make the cut I am planning on releasing all the scripts once the series has concluded.

This is a long post. (Could use some edits) See you again for another Box Peek update at the end of September! As always, thank you for your continued patience and encouragement.

Love & Respect,
Kyle